VOD Review - Angels of Sex (El sexo de los ángeles)

This Spanish film premiered in 2012. It was put on DVD in the United States in 2013. This year, Netflix made it available to stream.

Putting sex in the title is appropriate because this movie is more about lust than it is about love. Even though the characters involved all say they love each other, there is no qualification to it, meaning there's no reason why. The only thing on screen is rank, biological desire.

Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey stars as Carla, an aspiring photographer who works for a small magazine in Barcelona that is struggling financially. Her boyfriend is Bruno, played by Llorenç González. Bruno is a university student whose field of study is unsaid in the film. One day, while watching hip hop dancers and break-dancers near the beach, Bruno is mugged by a pickpocket who smashes his phone. Bruno is saved by one of the dancers named Rai, played by Álvaro Cervantes.

Rai works as a karate instructor at a small gym. He doesn't exactly have an apartment. He crashes at various places, including with the other dancers who squat in a house in a commune-like and pot-smoking existence where all sleep together in a post-orgy manner. It doesn't take long for Rai to start flirting with Bruno and making it known that Rai is in lust, despite knowing that Bruno's girlfriend is Carla.

Rai makes a move on Bruno after the two start hanging out more. Rai tries to kiss Bruno. Bruno backs away, but that awakens something in Bruno, which leads him to want to have sex with Rai. Carla catches the two having sex. She's upset, but Bruno denies being gay and describes his attraction to Rai like a drug, and his true love is Carla.

The middle chunk of the movie is Carla realizing that Bruno won't give up his drug addiction, as it were, to Rai and that if she wants to be with Bruno, she has to accept, as Rai suggests, that Bruno will still hang out and have sex with him.

Spoiler alert!

Eventually, Carla does accept it and in fact ends up falling in "love" with Rai. In fact, Carla, Bruno and Rai become a threesome or a poly-amorous trio. It's all fueled by the idea of being open, not limiting yourself and taking risks. Yet, the relationship only works because more than one is bisexual. This movie is basically a bisexual person's wet dream or absolute perfect fantasy. It also gives way to the idea of polyandry. Obviously, there's some drama but mostly it's a celebration of polyandry and bisexuality.

As such, it's interesting because most movies celebrate or push monogamy only. Monogamous relationships have been done to death. Polyandry is always considered cheating or adultery in most films, and is mostly just a bridge to another monogamous relationship, which is always the true goal.

This movie doesn't make polyandry or even bisexuality a bridge. It makes it the true goal. It says bisexuality or polyandry is okay and a good way to live one's life and is in fact the preferred way.

However, the problem with the film is that director Xavier Villaverde doesn't distinguish between the sexuality and the "andry." Villaverde actually favors the sexuality, much to this movie's detriment. Villaverde on top of that favors the heterosexuality. Yes, we do see Bruno and Rai kiss. Yes, we see them embraced naked but partially obstructed by a shower wall. Yes, we see them on a bed and Rai start to give Bruno oral sex, but Villaverde cuts away before it goes on for too long.

This is in contrast to the sex scenes between Bruno and Carla. The sex scenes between Bruno and Carla are allowed to be depicted in full view without cutting away or anything being obstructed. Carla has full-frontal nudity and Bruno is shown in total bare-ass. Bruno is in fact seen thrusting in total intercourse with Carla, again no cutting or obstruction and those heterosexual scenes have considerable running time. The homosexual scenes are brief and always held at more than arm's length.

There's a definite imbalance between the two, but the real problem is that the screenplay by Ana Maroto with help from Villaverde and José Antonio Vitoria doesn't explicate the emotional side as the physical side.

For example, when Carla and Bruno break-up after Carla learns about Bruno's affair with Rai, her reaction and seeming depression feel unjustified and unearned. Carla says she loves Bruno, but we never learn why. Beyond sexual attraction, again beyond lust, there's no reason why. Bruno is handsome, but he's not anymore special than tons of young Spanish men just as, if not more handsome and who would never cheat. We never get what it is that she sees in Bruno.

The fact that she could fall in love with Rai is proof that clearly he's not that special. Bruno's "drug addiction" is never reconciled either. Are we to believe that Rai really is a unique case? Again, beyond sheer lust, Bruno or Carla's "love" of Rai is unexplained either. Is it because Rai is forward with his seductions and both Bruno and Carla are so weak of will?

If they never met Rai, would Bruno and Carla still just be a couple? If another handsome young man comes along and makes moves on either, would either do the exact same thing and then go through the same process leading to a foursome? The assumption is yes, but if not, why not? Do they have a limit? Rai seems to have little to no boundaries. Yet, if all that has come to an end, I don't get why. Why are Bruno and Carla so special to him?

The actors do well with the material they're given. I don't think Carla is that well-written a character. She feels more like a pawn or a puppet, contrived to fit the plot and the trajectory of landing with a threesome. What if Rai for example wasn't bisexual, what would her relationship be with the two of them then? Does it only work in this configuration? This movie leaves us wondering.

Two Stars out of Five.
Not Rated but contains graphic nudity and sex.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 45 mins.